In the business world, face-to-face meetings generally include the exchange of information by way of various media. Obvious modes of interpersonal information exchange include voice and visual communication. In addition, documents are often exchanged or examined by the meeting participants, slides or viewgraphs may be shown and discussed in presentations, and drawings are often made on paper or a board, accompanied by an oral explanation. Modern meetings and conferences also can involve discussion of data processed by a computer, such as the results of spreadsheet calculations. The ability to communicate one's point using the most effective medium available, together with the opportunity to observe participants' reactions, cause many people to favor face-to-face meetings over communication by mail, FAX, or telephone.
Systems have recently become available which enable the conducting of meetings and conferences over long-distances, communicating not only audio information but also video, documents, graphics, and other types of information. Complex systems for accomplishing such meetings include satellite or other closed-circuit television techniques. Such television-based systems are relatively costly to set up and operate, primarily due to the costs of transmission of the information.
The speed, accuracy and reliability of communication over telephone lines, particularly digital telephone networks, has now improved to the extent that video and graphics information can be transmitted thereover, at sufficiently high rates that real-time teleconferencing can include audio, video, and computer graphics information. The ability to communicate multiple medium presentations has made video teleconferencing much more attractive to the participants, reducing the need of personnel to travel or relocate for effective communications and management.
An example of a modern teleconferencing system is the CS420R system manufactured and sold by VideoTelecom Corporation of Austin, Tex. This system provides real-time multiple-way communication of multiple medium information over conventional digital telephone networks. The media include audio and video, with the video information generated by the digitization of the output of a video camera. Other information communicated by this system includes computer-generated data, for example spreadsheet data, computer graphics, and interactive graphics data input by way of a graphics pad, mouse, or other input device. Documents can also be communicated in real-time according to this system, by way of facsimile, so that the conference participants may refer to the same document during the meeting. Other media include digitized still images, digital information from CD-ROM, and other known information media in the industry. Additional technical detail regarding the CS420R system is provided in Duran, et al., "A PC-compatible, multiprocessor workstation for video, data, and voice communication" , Visual Communications & Image Processing IV, William A. Perlman, ed., (SPIE, 1989), pp. 232-236, incorporated herein by reference.
As in the case with telephonic communication, however, an interactive conference requires that the parties each be connected to the system at the same time. Scheduling conflicts, time zone differentials, and other events which prevent parties from meeting face-to-face, also preclude meeting by phone or teleconference. These factors have presented the need for storage and retrieval of messages. Currently available systems for storage of audio messages include simple answering machines and complex voice mail systems, are now widely available. Another example of a well-known storage system for long-distance messages is a computer bulletin board, upon which various types of computer data may be stored. Of course, these systems are each limited to the storage and delivery of a single type of message. Particularly in today's complex worldwide business climate, it is desirable to transmit and store full multiple-media presentations for later retrieval.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a system for transmission of a multiple medium message, and for storage of the transmitted message for later retrieval.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a system where the media include audio, video, graphics, and any other information which may be acquired or generated by a computer and stored in computer-accessible memory.
It is a further object of this invention to provide such a system which utilizes existing teleconferencing hardware.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having reference to the following specification together with its drawings.